Wolf Hall Resources

To accompany our podcast of the 2015 series Wolf Hall, here are some resources related to costumes in the show.

Costume resources:

Do you want to make an outfit similar to the ones worn by Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell? A great place to start is the book The King’s Servantsby Caroline Johnson, and edited by Jane Malcom-Davis and Ninya Mikhaila. Or, if you’re interested in one of the costumes worn by likes of Johane Williamson, Cromwell’s sister-in-law (portrayed by Saskia Reeves), there’s the companion book The Queen’s Servants, also by Caroline Johnson. For more upper-class costumes along the lines of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, we recommend you check out The Tudor Tailor by Jane Malcom-Davis and Ninya Mikhaila.

The Tudor Tailor also has a line of patterns based on the diagrams in each of these books, so if scaling up patterns is not your forté, you can order a pattern in your size, complete with instructions from their online shop.

Recommended reading material mentioned in the podcast:

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel – The first book in the series on which the show is based.

About the author

Sarah discovered her dual passion for history and costume right around the age of twelve. Dragged kicking and screaming to her first Renaissance Faire at Black Point, she was convinced she was going to hate it, but to her surprise, she fell head over heels in love with the world of reenactment and dress up immediately. Her undergraduate degree is in Clothing & Textile Design, and she has a Master's in Art History and Visual Culture. When she’s not hauling crap to SCA events and ren faires, Sarah enjoys reading true crime books, writing fiction, and sewing historical clothing from the Middle Ages through the 20th-century. One of these days, she might even start updating her old costuming blog again.